


Echoes From The Void

by skatty



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil and his friends, Cecil doesnt notice, Earl and Cecil onesided love, Earl wishes to be with Cecil, Gen, M/M, Other, a teen FF, lets see about that, night vale is a weird place to grow up, teen, teen-life in night vale, teenage FF, warnings and rating can raise later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7101412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatty/pseuds/skatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up in Night Vale is a hopeless case. Everything tries to kill you, if it's your family or just the natural disasters, everything is deadly and mostly horrible. And in the middle of that some teenagers try to live the normal teenage life, they try to do homework, they try to fall in love and sometimes they get stuck in unwanted adventures.<br/>However this is a small glimpse of the Teenage Life of Cecil Palmer and some other beings of that town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cecil Palmer

**Author's Note:**

> A teenage fanfiction, dedicated to the Fandom of Night Vale. ♥
> 
> There will be different chapters involving the different characters.  
> So we get inputs on different lifes.

It was October, the month of crying, which surprised exactly no one. It was a well known fact that in October more people felt like crying, but not only letting their tears just run down their cheeks but actual sobbing and kneeling down, taking a fist full of dirt and cursing the world and existence itself while holding the dirt-fist up to the sky.

 _The void will soon consume everything and no one will be alive to remember to buy some milk,_ Cecil thought despite it being his own thought but more like the thought of the house. in which he was living with his family.

His mother, his brother/sister and his father - who wasn’t exactly from here, but from somewhere else.

While the boy was munching his cornflakes calmly - as if he was fully awake but not yet ready to stand up or to leave the building at all - he watched his (at the moment) brother searching through his jackets, probably on the lonely journey of finding his cigarettes, which the faceless young woman who secretly lived in their house had taken earlier, because she had run out of her own.

“Have you seen them?”, Simon said, looking up from his jacket and facing Cecil, who stopped chewing for the time of thinking. Silence filled the air between them, but not the awkward kind of silence, Simon was staring at his little brother, one eyebrow slowly rising while waiting for an answer.

Finally the younger one started to shake his head. He would not tell him about the faceless young woman who had left a note underneath Cecil's pillow, saying 'Took the cigarettes. Don't tell or I tell them about -' after that there was a stain of ink and Cecil wouldn't risk it to let her tell them whatever she knew.

“Fucking great.”, Simon murmured, still searching through his jacket before eventually putting it on and searching through the fridge instead, this time looking for breakfast.

But also that didn't seem to work out greatly since you never have what you want to eat at home, so he left with a quick 'see you later, looser.'.

Cecil and his brothers relationship has always been a bit troublesome, he always got along better with his sister but since Simon had found favor in that one boy from his clique he seemed to be around much more. Cecil wouldn't mind even though he could use some encouraging words from Abby from time to time, since their mother wasn't as encouraging as he wished she would be. And also this month Cecil felt a bit more depressed than usually.

But at the other hand – none of the mothers he knew were good at encouraging, maybe that was just one of those Night Vale Mom things.

So instead of further analyzing the motherhood of Night Vale, Cecil turned his attention to his cornflakes and thinking about school. Earl should be there soon and then he would finally get out of this hellhole that is called 'his home'.

He didn't mean the house.

He didn't mean to upset the house.

Damn. He would need to make it up to the house as soon as he would get home later.

“Where's your brother?”, the teen did not even notice that his father had entered the room.

“Where's your … sister?” the words were carefully chosen, he hadn't seen his offspring today so he couldn't be sure what to say.

“Simon.”, Cecil answered calmly, to firmly tell him that it was indeed his brother and to also remember his father that he also had a name. Of course their father knew their names but Cecil was at war with him.

“He's already gone.”

“Great.”, the older man growled in a tone that made Cecil feel guilty for not having stopped Simon before leaving the house. But it wasn't his fault wasn't it?

“ _It was.”, the house confirmed being upset about the insult earlier._

And with that the teens appetite was lost in guilt and anger, as usual and probably as every morning.  
“Next time you see him, tell him I need to talk to him.”, Leo said in a still angry and guilt giving voice, while he lit his pipe and breathed in as if he would sigh in disappointment.

“Yes.”, Cecil said low voiced and finally stood up, he didn't want to bare any more of this moment and prayed that Earl would be there soon to pick him up.

“I'm waiting outside for Earl.”, he announced to escape the thick air that had literally merged around his father.

“Earl? The child of that Scoutmaster? Hmpf. You think he's a good friend?”, the question wasn't ask in the nice way, more like in the way he wanted actually to say 'Drop the friendship to Earl Harlan already'. Cecil just nodded in response, he didn't want to talk about his friends or why there were what they were. They had too many talks of that kind already.

Quickly the teen grabbed his backpack for the school and walked across the floor to the front door, leaving the house with just a small glance back to the kitchen where a dark aura had spread, leaving the kitchen just in plain darkness. This wasn't necessary emerging from his father, but more likely from his mother who must have entered the kitchen.

His mother was a dark, mostly depressed and very nice woman. Cecil loved her as such but sometimes wished that she would spend more time with him.

Now that Cecil was outside, he could breath in deeply and wait for Earl.

The young Scout and probably later Scoutmaster would always come by before school so that they could walk together and chit chat a bit about everything before the rest of their friends would join their company in school.

 


	2. Earl Harlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning with Earl Harlan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Earl and his weird family ♥

Morning's at Earl's place have always been a bit more stressful but still harmonic. He would wake up to the loud and screeching tone of his fathers violin. His father was not capable of playing the violin like normal people would do it. He would just walk into the room, place the violin on his heart and start to force the violin bow down on the helpless instrument to bring out the most hideous tones possible.

Earl was fully awake every morning with dark shadows of nightmares under his eyes – mostly due to his fathers horrible music skills.

Christopher – which was his fathers name – would also wake his other children the same way. All in all Earl had 4 siblings.

His sisters Hannah, Laura and Alex. And his older brother David. Laura and Alex were also older than him and Hannah was just in elementary school.

People would usually think that growing up with so many siblings would help a child to learn how to socialize but his father thought that it was a good idea to gift him with the biggest brace that he could find online. So back when he was in elementary school no one would actually want to be friends with him and he could not show off his great social skills that got lost in between the laughter and jokes of the others.

At least he had met that one kid who had also been bullied – Cecil Palmer – who was now his best friend, plus he didn't need the braces anymore which also meant that things were getting better.

“Today – after you all got home, we are all going to go hiking!”, the father announced full of pure joy in his eyes, that he would almost have cried.

“But Dad, I've got to go to Amber.”, Laura shouted from her seat at the dining table, dangerously gesturing with the kitchen knife in her hand.

“Bahawawawa.”, he cried out in response, sitting down on his wooden chair that he had probably made for himself as he was a child.

“Seriously! Drop that! It's important.”, the red haired young woman said – getting more and more frustrated with her father.

“You just want to sneak out and be with your lover.”, David grunted while shoving some pancakes into his face.

“She is not my lover!”, she threw a spoon at her brother. “Not yet at least.” the woman added almost silently.

“Family hiking is a tradition, Laura.”

“Family hiking is everyday and today I drop off! Ask Earl if he brings his boyfriend and imagine it would be me!” - she felt as if her father would treat her unfair, she didn't know that he wanted to spend as much time with his family as possible before also he would fade away and never see their faces again.

Angry as the young woman was, she stood up, rolled one of her pancakes together, took her bag and left the house furiously. Just the door falling shut left a loud noise, everyone else was silent.

Earl did not look up, he focused on swallowing his breakfast before he also said something.

“Cecil is not my boyfriend.”, he said even though he wished it would be otherwise.

“Not yet.” David added.

“Not nothing.” Earl corrected and stood up. “I'm gonna ask him to come by anyway.”, he mumbled while he tried to ignore the smudge grin on his brothers face.

Dickface, he thought, “Dickface”, Earl said.

One child after the other left the dining room, waving their goodbyes to meet up for family hiking later. Christopher kept on sitting in the dining room, looking at the table, hoping that Laura would change her mind, hoping that Earl would bring his best friend to the family hiking, hoping that Hannah would make friends in school and hoping that David would finally understand how important it is to be a Scoutmaster to Night Vale.

No one knew how hard the struggle of a father with 5 children was. No one understood how it was to raise children he barely could remember when he woke up.

As Earl had left the house, he hurried into the direction of Cecil's home. Seriously, it was ridiculous, Cecil lived like three blocks away from school and Earl was closer, so instead of meeting up at the school which would have been much less work for Earl, he walked down to him every single morning just so spend some time with the teenager.

He would never admit it in front of his family – even though most of them probably already assumed – but he had been in love with Cecil for as long as he could remember. And he had been afraid a long time as well, he didn't want to ruin their friendship etc. etc.

But as Earl told Cecil that he had been in love with him for like forever, Cecil just smiled gently, hugged him and said 'You are my best friend too! Of course I love you!'.

That has not been what he had meant but Earl was too confused to correct him. And now he had to live with the thought that they would probably never have something going on.

He walked down the street and could see Cecil waiting for him outside, which was a great relief since he wasn't too eager to meet up with the rest of his best friends family. Cecil was actually the most normal one of them.

“Hey.”, the young scout greeted Cecil with a soft smile and gave him a maybe a bit too lovely hug. Cecil didn't mind. He never minded and embraced the hug as well.

“Hey.”, he smiled, sounding as if he would be relieved and they started to walk down the street together.

 


	3. Marcus Vansten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcus has a troubled life.

The morning for Marcus Vansten was like the way he got to bed.

He felt horrible and very tired, just like the feeling you have when someone would run over you with a bike and slap the coffee out of your hand that you bought with the last cash you've got for that month.

Every day felt like this to the probably richest teenager in town. Sleeping was bad but being awake was even worse.

 _Will you buy some milk later?_ A voice with a very bad echo turned up in his head as soon as he stood up and forced himself to enter the bathroom.

“After … School.” he said, feeling as if hit by a bike over again, but this time differently. It felt more like a person would get off a bike, while insulting him and throwing the vehicle directly at him.

That was also the way he would explain the migraine that he got from listening to those voices.

 

As he turned 13 the voices had appeared in his head and he decided not to tell anyone. Not that anyone would actually care, or ask. And not that 'Do you sometimes hear voices in your head?' - was a part of casually small talk.   
What Marcus didn't know was, that it was actually a normal question for casually small talks – he just never did that kind of socializing with anyone.

 

“Marcus?” another voice appeared, but this time it wasn't one of the strange ones. This one was sharper and a bit high pitched, but still in that kind of spectrum where you would know that the voice would definitely belong to a middle aged man, with fancy clothes and a nicely trimmed beard.

Marcus needed a moment to notice, that it wasn't a voice he could just try to ignore but the voice of his father.

“Hm?” he called back, with almost not making any sound at all, since 'hm' is not a very loud tone.

That was a usual response from teenagers, the father thought, that was something he had read in one of his 'How to raise your child' – books, he would always had read the time he thought having children was a great idea. That has been a long time ago.

  
He walked into the bathroom, where his son turned around slowly, while leaning on the counter. The man turned the lights on, since Marcus had been in complete darkness until that point, the teenager squinted his eyes as if he would be in pain.   
Probably migraine, we should get him to a doctor – the father would have thought if he would have cared.

 

Marcus did not get to see him that often anyway, since his parents were pretty busy most of the days and would just leave 200 dollars on the kitchen table for his daily needs.

 

“Your mother and I are going to be away for some days, I guess.” around the mans eyes was make up, of course in a very bright pink. He always liked to paint his eyes the way the skin of a snake looks like.

“Here, have something for today and tomorrow.” he carelessly put some money down on one of the shelves in the bathroom, while Marcus was still standing at the other end of the room, not making a sound but just nodding faintly.

 

Of course leaving some money for him to survive wasn't carelessly at all, that showed that his parents actually wanted him to live, but it still had a very distance feeling to it.   
They both stood in silence for some time. Marcus, carefully leaning against the counter while his father fixed his hair, trying to look like he was doing something that would keep him from making conversation. It failed, since he wasn't fixing his hair with his tongue.   
The silence was beyond awkwardness, Caesar didn't know how to communicate with his son – not that he cared about talking to him. No, Marcus was as much an accident as his last car crash was.

 

Without any more words the dark haired man left the bathroom and Marcus stared at the point where his father had been just moments ago.

 

 _Milk,_ a voice mentioned - “Not now.”, Marcus breathed.

 

After getting ready, through putting on some sunglasses to hide the sleeping bags under his eyes and getting into some clothes, Marcus took the money from the shelf and walked down into the kitchen.  
He would have wanted to breakfast, if he would have known how to make some breakfast. He never needed to do things on his own, but right now no one was here – not even a personal assistant.

So Marcus decided not to get anything to eat and made his way out of the mansion.

 

 _Marcus, Milk!_ The voice turned up again, and Marcus stopped walking for that second. He glanced into the direction of the grocery store.

 

_Do it._

He did it.

 

Walking into the grocery store, the voices turned louder.

_They probably moved the milk to the end of the store Marcus. We think they hired a horrible architect._

The teenager did not notice, that the people around him greeted him.

He did not notice, that others asked him how he and his family was.

Everyone knew the Vanstens, but Marcus did not know any one of them – not that he had noticed them right now anyway.

 

 _1,50 $ for milk is a bit much, isn't it? But it's for a higher cause, Marcus._ The voice consumed all of his thinking. It consumed all of his day.

He bought the item, without saying a word, listening to words he didn't care about.

He just wanted them to turn silent again, so his headaches would stop.

 

While he walked back in the direction of his home – to put the milk in the fridge – he found some time to take a look at his mobile phone, quickly texted Jake and noticed that he should hurry up or else he would be late for school.

Actually, he didn't care much about that. Being late or being there on time, it wouldn't make a difference to him. The only thing he cared about was that he would find some time to be with his friends before school would start. Social interactions was not something Marcus was good at, but just sitting with them was enough.

  
The teenager changed his course and made his way to the school.

 

 _Milk belongs in a fridge._ They reminded him.   
The teenager ignored them.

 

 _You are not on the right path._ The voice growled.

He didn't stop.

 

 _Marcus._ They said.

“...” he replied.

 

 _ **Marcus.**_ They threatened and dropped 3 corpses down on his path, to block his way.

  
He stopped.

 


End file.
